Sausage And Shrimp Gumbo

Ingredients

  • 1 pound smoked sausage, sliced 1/4-inch thick (we used Conecuh Hickory Smoked Sausage)
  • 1 pound andouille sausage, sliced 1/4-inch thick (we used Roger Wood andouille)
  • 1/4 cup unsalted butter
  • 2/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 2/3 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 medium onion, chopped (we used a yellow onion)
  • 1 cup chopped green bell pepper
  • 1 cup sliced celery
  • 2 (32-ounce) cartons seafood stock (we used Swanson seafood stock)
  • 3 cloves garlic, minced
  • 2 bay leaves (we used fresh bay leaves)
  • 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 teaspoons Creole seasoning (we used Zatarain’s Creole seasoning)
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 3 pounds large fresh shrimp, peeled and deveined (tails left on)
  • Hot cooked rice (we used white rice)
  • Garnish: chopped green onion (optional)

Directions

  1. Set a large Dutch oven over medium heat, tossing in all the sausage* and letting it cook for 5 to 8 minutes or until all of it’s browned, stirring now and then during that time. Using a slotted spoon, take the sausage out of the Dutch oven and place it on a paper towel-lined plate where it can drain. Keep 2 tablespoons of the drippings in the Dutch oven, discarding any extra.
  2. Add the butter and oil to the Dutch oven. Once the butter’s melted, whisk in the flour until the mixture is smooth. Whisk the roux frequently (we stirred constantly) until it looks like it has the same color as dark peanut butter (they say it’s supposed to take 25 minutes to achieve that color but it took us less time than that). Add in the onion, bell pepper, and celery, stirring frequently (we stirred constantly) for 8 minutes or until the vegetables are tender. Slowly stir in the stock until everything’s combined, waiting for boiling to occur afterwards. Mix in the sausage, garlic, bay leaves, Worcestershire, Creole seasoning, and the thyme. Turn the heat down to low and let it cook for 1 hour, stirring now and then.
  3. Mix the shrimp in, cooking it for 15 minutes. Serve immediately over rice, sprinkling on the green onion if you want to use it.

*We had to brown our sausage in batches, otherwise most or all of the sausage would’ve just been steamed and never gotten that sexy browning.

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This tasted so freaking good that we didn’t stop eating until we were stuffed ! There would’ve been even more sausage in the gumbo but we weren’t always successful in keeping our hands off that deliciousness after it was done getting browned in the Dutch oven ! We did have to remove the tail shell from the shrimp before eating it but it was worth that little bit of extra time because they were so nice and tender in each bite. We forgot to put the green onions on for the picture but while they were good with the dish, the gumbo can stand all on its own for flavor (should you skip on using green onions). The rice helped make the dish even more filling and added another texture. We hope you enjoy eating this as much as we did !

This recipe came from “Cooking With Paula Deen” magazine.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Conecuh, Roger Wood, Swanson, Zatarain’s, or “Cooking With Paula Deen” magazine.

Take care everybody !

Fried Chicken Sandwiches

Ingredients

  • 2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts (8 oz. each, halved lengthwise
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1  tsp. Tabasco sauce
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 cup cornstarch
  • 1 tsp. kosher salt
  • 1/2 tsp. each black pepper and cayenne pepper
  • 1/2 cup peanut or vegetable oil (we used vegetable oil)
  • 4 White Mountain rolls or large hamburger buns, halved, brushed with mayonnaise, and toasted (we used Pepperidge Farm Sesame-Topped Hamburger Buns)
  • Green leaf or romaine lettuce (we used romaine lettuce)
  • Kosher dill pickle chips
  • Remoulade* (recipe follows)

Directions

  1. Take a baking sheet and line it with parchment paper, placing a rack inside afterwards.
  2. Pound each breast half into 1/4-inch-thick cutlets** using a meat mallet (we placed a piece of wax paper between the chicken and the mallet so the meat wouldn’t get stuck to the mallet).
  3. Pour the buttermilk and Tabasco sauce into a bowl, stirring to combine. Place the chicken in the buttermilk mixture, next placing the bowl in the fridge for 30 minutes.
  4. Take a shallow dish and mix the flour, cornstarch, salt, black pepper, and cayenne together in it. One at a time, take the chicken out of the buttermilk mixture, letting any excess buttermilk drip back into the bowl. Place the chicken in the flour mixture, making sure the chicken is fully coated. Shake off any excess before placing it on the rack. Once all the chicken is on the rack, let it stand for 10 minutes before dunking it back into the buttermilk, letting the excess drip off before coating it in the flour (shaking any excess off) and placing it back on the rack where it’ll sit for another 10 minutes.
  5. Take a  12-inch cast-iron skillet and pour the oil into it, setting the skillet over medium-high heat. Once the oil’s reached 350 degrees***, fry the chicken (we fried it one piece at a time) for 2-3 minutes  per side or until it looks golden brown (we did 3 minutes per side). Place the fried chicken on a paper-towel-lined baking sheet (we used  paper-towel lined plates).
  6. Place the chicken on the toasted rolls, topping it with the lettuce, pickles and remoulade.

Remoulade Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1 1/4 cup mayonnaise
  • 1/4 cup mustard (Creole mustard if possible) (we used Creole mustard)
  • 1 Tbsp. sweet paprika (we used smoked paprika)
  • 1-2 teaspoons Cajun or Creole seasoning (we used 2 teaspoons of Zatarain’s Creole seasoning)
  • 2 teaspoons prepared horseradish (we used Silver Spring prepared horseradish)
  • 1 teaspoon pickle juice (dill or sweet) (we used dill pickle juice)
  • 1 teaspoon hot sauce (preferably Tabasco) (we used Tabasco)
  • 1 large clove garlic, minced and smashed

Directions

  1. Combine all the ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Cover, and let it sit in the refrigerator for at least a couple of hours to help all the flavors blend.

*The fried chicken sandwich actually wanted a different recipe for rémoulade but we weren’t able to get all the ingredients for that recipe and we made this one instead. Thankfully this remoulade tastes really good with the chicken sandwich !

**We tried to get chicken breasts that weighed as close as possible to 8 oz. but they still weighed more than that. We hoped that simply the fact that they were still pounded out to 1/4-inch would mean that they’d be fully cooked. They were but we still checked to make sure they were fully cooked before letting them drain on the paper towels.

***The oil was too shallow for us to register the temperature so we just placed the chicken in the skillet once we heard a nice sizzle as the coating touched the oil.

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We don’t really get to eat out anymore so when we come across recipes that remind us of dishes that we’ve ordered in the past, we’re excited to make them ! When you try the chicken by itself, it has this really nice, crunchy coating but it does lose some of that crunch once the toppings are placed on it so just make sure you wait to put the toppings on until you know you’re actually going to start eating. The remoulade tasted so good with the chicken, the sauce almost had a bbq taste to it. The lettuce had a nice crunch to it, the pickles bring acidity  but if you’re not a fan of pickles, this sandwich still tastes awesome without it ! Toasting the bun might seem unnecessary but it really helps support the weight of the chicken and keeps the bun from getting soggy. We’ll still keep trying other recipes for fried chicken sandwiches that we come across but we enjoyed this one enough that we’re definitely going to make it again in the future !

We got the fried chicken sandwich recipe  from Cuisine At Home and the remoulade sauce from Simply Recipes.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Tabasco, White Mountain, Pepperidge Farm, Zatarain, Silver Spring, Cuisine At Home, or Simply Recipes.

Take care everybody !

Salt And Vinegar Wings

Ingredients

  • 2 cups distilled white vinegar
  • Water
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
  • 4 to 4 1/2 pounds split chicken wings (we bought whole chicken wings that we broke down into wingettes and drumettes, throwing the tips away)
  • Vegetable oil, for frying
  • 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/4 cups cornstarch
  • Assorted sauces, for dipping (they suggested 3 different sauces and for this first time, we decided to make their Sriracha-Honey Soy Sauce, recipe follows)

Directions

  1. Take a medium-sized bowl out and stir the vinegar, 1 cup water, 3 tablespoons salt and 1/2 teaspoon of pepper together until the salt has mostly dissolved. Place the wings in a nonreactive bowl or baking dish (we put them in a ziploc bag which we then placed in a baking dish) and pour the liquid  mixture over the chicken wings, making sure the wings are as submerged in the liquid as possible (we sealed the bag up at this point). Place the wings in the refrigerator for 2 hours, stirring the wings around now and then so you know that all the wings are coated in the liquid.
  2. Drain the liquid, pat the wings dry and let them come to room temperature (this can take a while*). Preheat your oven to 200 degrees. Take a baking sheet out and place a rack on it (we lined our sheet with aluminum foil first before placing the rack on the sheet). Take a large heavy pot (we used our Dutch oven) and pour enough vegetable oil in so the pot is half way full. Place the pot over medium-high heat and bring the oil temperature up to 375 degrees.
  3. Take a large bowl out and whisk the following ingredients together in it: flour, cornstarch, 2 teaspoons salt, and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. Slowly whisk in 2 cups of very cold water to make a light batter. Add all of the wings to a bowl, tossing to coat.
  4. Using tongs, grab one wing at a time, letting any excess batter drip back into the bowl before lowering the wing completely into the oil, holding it there for a few seconds before releasing it (this helps seal the coating). Fry for 8 to 9 minutes or until the coating is golden and crispy (we found that we could fry around 5 or so wings at a time without the temperature dropping too much). Take the wings and place them on the rack-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle a little bit of salt over the wings and place the sheet in the oven so the wings stay warm as you cook up future batches of the wings. Once the wings are all cooked, serve immediately with the sauce.

Sriracha-Honey Soy Sauce

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup honey
  • 1/2 cup Sriracha
  • 1/4 cup soy sauce (we used reduced-sodium soy sauce)
  • Juice from 1/2 of a lime
  • 1 tablespoon sesame oil (we used toasted sesame oil)

Directions

  1. Add all of the ingredients to a saucepan, whisking to combine. Set the saucepan over medium heat, whisking until it’s simmering and the sauce has thickened, about 5 minutes**. Let cool before serving with the chicken wings.

*We didn’t know that it would take hours for the wings to come to room temperature so next time we make this, we’ll probably get started in the morning so we don’t have to worry about the time it’ll take for the chicken wings to reach room temperature.

**It took us longer than 5 minutes to get the sauce thickened so we were happy that we thought to make this while the chicken was sitting in the fridge.

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To be honest, we’ve been afraid to fry chicken wings but we’re so glad that we overcame that fear ’cause we never would’ve know otherwise just how freaking awesome fried chicken wings can be ! The coating on these wings have the most wonderful crispy crunchy texture to them. We weren’t sure if getting the nice crispy coating on the chicken wings might result in dried out meat but thankfully the meat was juicy and tender. We think the wings sitting in that vinegar mixture is what prevented the meat from drying out. We never did taste the vinegar in the chicken wings but that’s okay, they were still delicious plain and tasted even better when we tried them with the dipping sauce. The sauce starts off tasting kinda sweet but then the heat from the Sriacha kicks in and you definitely end on a spicy note, it just makes you want to keep on coming back for more ! If all fried chicken wings taste as good as this one did, then we can’t wait to make more fried chicken wings in the future !

This recipe came from Food Network.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Ziploc or Food Network.

Take care everybody !

Fried Pork Chops With Pickle Juice Gravy

Ingredients

  • 4 (6-ounce) rib or center cut pork chops (about 3/4 inch thick) (we used 5* Pork Loin Rib Chops that were bone-in)
  • Kosher salt
  • Ground black pepper (we used freshly ground black pepper)
  • 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
  • 1 cup dry bread crumbs (we used Progresso Plain Bread Crumbs)
  • 3 large fresh sage leaves, minced (our sage leaves (after being minced) yielded us a little less than a tablespoon)
  • Vegetable oil, for frying
  • Pickle Juice Gravy (recipe follows)
  • Garnish: fresh sage, flaked sea salt

Directions

  1. Sprinkle salt and pepper over both sides of the pork chops.
  2. Take 3 wide, shallow bowls out. Add the flour to the first bowl. Add the eggs to the second bowl. Mix the bread crumbs and sage together in the last bowl. Coat the pork chops in flour first, shaking off any excess. Place the pork chops in the eggs next, letting any excess egg drip back into the bowl. Finally, put the pork chops in the breadcrumb mixture so they get completely coated, gently pressing the breadcrumbs onto the pork so they adhere  better.
  3. Pour enough oil into a 12-inch cast-iron skillet that it reaches a depth of 1/4-inch, setting the skillet over high heat (we didn’t go any higher than medium-high heat). Fry the pork chops until they’re crispy and look browned, flipping them just once (cook them for about 3 minutes per side), adjusting the heat if necessary (it was definitely necessary for us**). Take the pork chops out of the skillet and place them on a paper towel-lined plate to drain, sprinkling a little bit more salt*** on afterwards.
  4. Serve the pork chops with the Pickle Juice Gravy, sprinkling some sage and sea salt on the pork chops (if you’re using the garnishes that is).

Pickle Juice Gravy

Ingredients

  • 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
  • 5 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups chicken stock
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper (we used freshly ground black pepper)
  • 1/4 cup dill pickle juice, or to taste (we used 1/4 cup of dill pickle juice from a jar of Mt. Olive Hamburger Dill Chips)
  • 1 tablespoon cold unsalted butter

Directions

  1. Take a 10-inch cast-iron skillet out and place 5 tablespoons of butter in it, placing the skillet over medium-high heat. Once the butter’s melted, slowly whisk in the flour until combined. Stir constantly for a minute or until a “rough paste” form (we weren’t sure what they meant by “rough paste” so we called it good after a minute).
  2. Slowly whisk the stock in, continuing to stir until the mixture looks smooth. Wait for it to come to a boil, turning the heat down immediately afterwards so it’s at a simmer. Let simmer for 2 minutes or until the gravy’s thickened****. Stir in the salt and pepper.
  3. Whisk the pickle juice in to combine, finally adding in that cold tablespoon of butter. They say to swirl the skillet until it looks like it’s fully melted but we just whisked it in until it was melted and mixed in with the rest of the gravy. Serve immediately.

*Our package came with 5 pork chops so we decided to see if there was enough flour, egg, and breadcrumb mixture to coat it. Turns out there was just enough left to coat the extra chop in (just letting you know in case your package has 5 pork chops in it instead of just the 4 the recipe called for).

**This was our first fried pork chop recipe so we followed the directions and the first pork chop was way more browned on the first side than we wanted it to before it even reached 3 minutes so we adjusted the temperature and got MUCH BETTER results !

***We used the flaked sea salt at this point instead of more kosher salt.

****We turned our back on the gravy (didn’t feel like more than maybe a couple of minutes at most) and realized it was boiling so we turned the heat down and stirred it around. When we stirred it, we realized that the gravy already felt like it had thickened so we just skipped the 2 minute simmer and moved onto stirring in the salt and pepper.

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When we first saw the recipe title, we were both intrigued and a little nervous about making fried pork chops with “pickle juice gravy” but it turned out to be delicious ! It sort of reminded us of eating a chicken fried steak with gravy. While we didn’t taste the sage too much in the breading, we enjoyed the nice crispy crunch of the coating. The gravy sounds weird based off the name but we couldn’t get enough of it ! It tastes like chicken gravy but with the taste of pickle juice in the background. We loved the gravy so much, we might try to see what it’s like as a component of a breakfast sandwich in the future !

This recipe came from Southern Cast Iron.

We weren’t paid in any form to promote Progresso, Mt. Olive, or Southern Cast Iron.

Take care everybody !